July 01, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Working poor and education in 2001

The incidence of living in poverty greatly diminishes as workers achieve higher levels of education.

[Chart data—TXT]

In 2001, only 1.5 percent of college graduates were counted among the working poor. This compared with 2.6 percent of workers with associate degrees, 4.4 percent of those with some college but no degree, 5.8 percent of high school graduates with no college, and 13.1 percent of high school dropouts.

At all educational attainment levels other than college graduate, women were more likely than men to be among the working poor. At all major educational attainment levels, blacks were more likely to be among the working poor than were whites.

These data were collected in the 2002 Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey. For more information see A Profile of the Working Poor, 2001 (PDF 327K).

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• Rate of working poor rises in 2001